Aida Semyonovna Vedishcheva (, born Ida Solomonovna Weiss, , 10 June 1941) is a Soviet and American singer. In the 1960s, she contributed songs to several film soundtracks, including the timeless hits: "Song About Bears", "Help Me", "Forest Deer", "She-bear's Lullaby", "I'll Wait for You", "Chunga-Changa", "Blue Water", "The First Spring" and many others. Biography Early life Aida Vedishcheva was born in Kazan (administrative center of Tatar ASSR) in the doctor's family of scientist, professor of dentistry Solomon Weiss and surgeon Elena Emelyanova, who arrived from Kyiv just before World War II. In 1951, the Ministry of Health offered professor Weiss to open faculty of therapeutic dentistry in Irkutsk, Siberia. There, Vedishcheva finished her School and Music School. Afterwards (by her parents' request), she enrolled into the Pedagogical Institute of the foreign languages, where she studied both the German and English languages and at the same time she was performing in the student theater of the musical comedy. Upon graduating from the institute, Vedishcheva left for Moscow, to fulfill her dream of becoming an actress-singer. She tried to enroll into the Mikhail Shchepkin Higher Theatre School but failed. After that, she began her singing career due to her strong and beautiful voice. Music career Aida Vedishcheva began her singing performance career in the early 1960s, in Orel State Philharmonic Society. Vedishcheva sang in the famous jazz orchestras of Oleg Lundstrem and later of Leonid Utyosov orchestras. From 1966 on, she was performing along with the "Meloton" ensemble as well as the Vocal-instrumental ensemble (VIE) "Blue Guitars" led by Igor Granov. The same year (1966), Vedishcheva became a laureate of the First "All-Union Competition of Soviet Song". She achieved the national recognition after singing "Song About Bears" in 1967 for the movie Kidnapping, Caucasian Style (seven and a half million records were sold). The song from the movie-musical "Red, Blue, Green" (1967). In 1968, for the song "Geese, Geese" ("Gusi, gusi") she received a diploma at the Sopot International song festival (the Polish Baltic Sea coast). That was followed by such songs/movie soundtracks as "Volcano of Desires" ("Help Me") for the movie The Diamond Arm (1968), the soundtrack for the movie "White Piano" with the song "I'll Wait for You", "The First Spring". With the song "Comrade" (1970), Vedishcheva won the 1st prize on the competition at the Moscow radio station "Youth". The record of this song was sold by millions